SIR - They say a picture paints a thousand words.

I have never set foot inside Elgar school but I am a parent of teenagers, an ex-youth leader and have also worked as a teacher, so I can empathise with some of the issues governors and staff face.

However, two images of Elgar stick in my mind. Firstly, the streams of Elgar girls who walk down under the bridge near Brickfields as I pass in my car each day. Either they carry nothing or some have small silver, pink or white bags, usually dangling on little chain-style straps. Where are their school bags full of homework or healthy snacks that we see in the arms or on the backs of pupils from other schools?

What about the boys? Well, a few of them do carry small bags and then, in common with the girls, many are tucking hungrily in to bags of crisps, sweets or even giant baguettes. The small convenience shop opposite Elgar is always choc-a-block with pupils who then hazard a crossing on the adjacent dangerous bend.

Which brings me to the second abiding image I have of Elgar. Travelling past the school one morning I could see a very young-looking member of staff smartly dressed in a suit and frantically waving along all the dawdling pupils.

In the hand not engaged in the frantic waving of them to hurry, she had a big bag of crisps. Every now and then she would plunge in her hand, haul out a handful and cram them into her mouth. Was this an adequate role model for these disaffected youngsters?

It is not only the governors and staff who will have to do some soul searching at this time. What about the parents of the girls with the clutch bags or the boys stuffing baguettes and crisps, playing dare' with cars, dawdling to school? From the outside I detect clear patterns of parental responsibilities being taken very lightly indeed and possibly a staff overwhelmed by the enormity of the social problems of youngsters, that they themselves have lost energy and vision.

Mrs C Thomas, Worcester.